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About Michael J. Miller

Miller, who was editor-in-chief of PC Magazine from 1991 to 2005, authors this blog for PC Magazine to share his thoughts on PC-related products. No investment advice is offered in this blog. All duties are disclaimed. Miller works separately for a private investment firm which may at any time invest in companies whose products are discussed in this blog, and no disclosure of securities transactions will be made.

CES 2011: Windows on ARM Headlines Ballmer CES Keynote

Windows 8, running on ARM-based and low-power X86 systems, along with new enhancements for Xbox and Windows Phone were the focus of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's keynote last night, opening up the Consumer Electronics show.

The demo of the "next generation of Windows" (which Ballmer actually did not call Windows 8) was the most anticipated part of the keynote, though it echoed a demo Microsoft gave earlier in the day. Ballmer was clear that the company was only showing an early version of that version of Windows running on ARM-based chips for the first time (as well as on x86 cores from Intel and ARM) in order to give hardware makers time to create new devices. He said this would enable a new class of hardware and form factors.

Ballmer said Windows 8 would support ARM-based chips from Nvidia, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments; as well as traditional and SOC versions of chips from Intel and AMD. He went out of his way to point out that the demo was only to show hardware support, not any changes to functions and the user interface. It seems unlikely we'll see Winodws 8 until 2012.

Ballmer and Michael Angiulo of the Windows team showed some demos of the next version of Windows running on the new hardware. Angiulo's demos included showing the upcoming SOC version of Intel's Atom chip looking exactly the same. Then he showed the system running on a Qualcomm ARM chip; and then a versions of Microsoft Office running on an TI- based system, including printing using an Epson printer with a print driver that was recompiled for ARM. On an Nvidia Tegra 2 based system, he showed off PowerPoint and Internet Explorer, both using hardware-acceleration, as well as videos playing.

"Whatever device you use, now or in the future, Windows will be there," Ballmer said, noting that Windows had "the depth and breadth - and the flexibility" - to define a new generation of products.

Before he talked about the next generation of Windows, Ballmer spent a lot of time talking about how well Windows 7 is doing. He said Windows 7 PCs are the fastest-selling PCs in history, and are now more than 20 percent of installed PCs connected to the Internet. He said 20 million people are running the Internet Explorer 9 beta; 500 million people have now downloaded the lastest version of Windows Live; and 20 million people have used the Office Live applications.

Angiulo showed off lots of Windows 7 PCs, including a number running the new Intel Sandy Bridge and AMD Fusion chips. In particular, he showed demos of benchmarks in Internet Explorer 9 using GPU acceleration. And he showed off a number of upcoming machines, including the new Acer Iconia dual-screen notebook; and a Samsung Tablet with a sliding keyboard based on an Intel Oak Trail processor due in March; and an Asus Tablet PC with a demo of it using ink as well as touch controls with a particularly nice screen.

Angiulo also announced a new version of Microsoft Surface in a new 4-inch deep model from Samsung with a new technology called Pixel sense, using infrared sensors to let the surface "see" content on the surface rather than an integrated camera as used in the previous version. This will let Surface be used in kiosks and not just in tables, he said. He showed a demo of a Surface application from the Royal Bank of Canada.

Ballmer started his keynote by talking about Xbox 360, saying that with Xbox Live and Xbox Kinect, 2010 was the best year ever for Xbox. He said 30 million people are now Xbox Live members; and that Xbox 360 has sold 50 million units, and has been the top selling console in the U.S. for the last six months. He said Microsoft sold over 8 million Kinect sensors in its first 60 days.

Ron Forbes of the Interactive Entertainment Division showed off how Kinect was helping to control things beyond games, calling up content from Zune (Microsoft's catalog of movies and music) using voice controls, and using hand controls to do things like move forward and back. At the keynote, he showed version of Netflix and Hulu Plus coming this spring which will also work with voice and hand controls. He also talked about how ESPN Live on Xbox let you watch the game live while interacting with your community of friends.

Ballmer also showed off "Avatar Kinect," in which your on-screen avatar picks up not only your motion, but also your facial expression, which Ballmer said would be free for Xbox Live Gold members this spring. It's definitely cool technology.

He then talked about how Xbox Live is a part of Windows Phone, with more games coming, including Fable Coin Golf, Halo Waypoint, and Project Sunburst.

On Windows Phone 7, Ballmer talked about how it let you do things faster than other platforms, and integrated things like Office and Xbox. He said Windows Phone was launched with 9 phones on 30 carriers across the world. He said there are now 5500 applications, with about 100 new ones being added every day. He pointed to new applications like the Kindle and a Bank of America app - and said Microsoft's biggest challenge was showing the phone to more people. He said 9 out of 10 Windows Phone customers say they would recommend the phone.

In the next few months, Ballmer promised a series of updates, including copy and paste and significant performance improvements in loading and switching between applications. And he said the version that will support CDMA networks such as Verizon and Sprint will be out in the first half of this year.

Liz Sloan from the Windows Phone team showed off things like the dedicated camera button that works even when the screen is locked, and how that connects very quickly to Facebook. She also talked about how the lock screen shows your calendar, time and date, missed calls; and how the start screen has "live tiles" that change. She showed off voice search; how you could find things near locations easily; and how Bing brings up answers instead of just links. In addition, she showed off the different hubs, such as the Office hub where you can work on documents with colleagues and share things via SharePoint, and take notes with OneNote; and Xbox Live. These looked good, but aren't new. I hope we'll see more at Mobile World Congress next month.

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